Relinquishment Clinic
by osmandias
Summary: Life, death, and something inbetween at a relinquishment clinic in Polyhex. While the heart of the story centers around my two original characters, there's a small part where Rewind makes an apperance.


Once they came to relinquish their old forms and exchange a monotonous life for one envisioned more thrilling. Back then I was a surgeon transferring sparks from a mundane shell to the exotic. Back then business was brisk and a tidy profit turned every vorn. Never mind the work was illegal and functionalists would have stripped me for spare parts; I helped sate a growing need in a withering and inflexible society.

That all changed when the war began.

Once they came to relinquish their old forms. Now they come to relinquish their lives. I turned from skilled surgeon to accomplished executioner. By Primus, business is brisk, more so than before, for what the mortars and close combat can't end for these suicidal combatants, I can.

It is very hard but not impossible to kill a Cybertronian. I shuttle them from this callous existence to the Well of All-Sparks. Unlike some more conservative Cybertronians, I am a religious individual, Primus knows I am, and never cared for the beliefs the functionalists set up. I aid my fellows when I can, although I do try to offer them a glimmer of hope. Right now the newscast I'm watching doesn't offer hope.

The door hisses open, I can hear the heavy sure-footed steps of Abolition, my associate in this clinic.

"Purge, the next patient is waiting." Calm, methodical, and devoid of emotion, Abolition does her trade well. My optics flit from the televised newscast to look at the red-and-gold chromed femme. She passes me a dataslate with her slender hand, digits that can transform into the sharpest of blades and used with deadly precision. She goes to prepare a surgical tray while I scan the patient's file.

Once I was a re-engineer of Sparkswap Technology and alt-modes. Now all I engineer is death. I look back at the broadcast, the ruins of an Autobot held city on Cybertron. All cities look the same now, drained of energy, ruined by missile salvos, the people who remain in burnt-out habunits share the same haggard look.

"Purge?"

"An Autobot, huh?" My optics zoom in on the faction's sigil. "I thought the 'heroes' of this war wouldn't give up."

"I thought we agreed to use non-judgemental vocabulary for our customers." Abolition's tone is clipped. "It's bad for business if others know we put labels on those who want a quiet and dignified end."

She walks off, conversation finished, to prep the surgical theatre. I go to have the consultation with the patient. In the few relinquishment clinics still operating in Polyhex, mine's the only place where patients have a last chance to rethink their decision. I do this because my conscience demands it. My morality, tempered by my devotion to Primus, needs to be assuaged before I take their shanix, before I commit to assisting these suicides. Abolition doesn't know I do these consults, and if she does she never speaks about them.

I haven't convinced anyone to turn themselves away but by Primus I keep trying. Strange that swapping alt-modes, going against the decrees of the functionalists, never bothered my ethics. War dirties everything.

I step into the white-walled cubicle with the dataslate in hand and look at my patient. I glance at the Autobot insignia on his shoulder guards, scan his form, and deduce from his thick armour and backside turret that his alt-mode must be a tank. He absently holds a glass of engex and looks at me with glazed optics.

"So you're the one who'll help me end it all," the Autobot says. "The name's Grindwheel." He offers his hand, his green chrome chipped, mechanics edged in rust. I shake it, business-like, before sitting down and boot up the dataslate.

"You have thought this procedure over, I presume. Once in the surgical theatre you can't have any final impulses. You must be set."

"I am. And here." Grindwheel offers me a shanix datachip containing his suicide's fee. "It's all in there. Don't try to talk me out of this, doctor, because I didn't cross three warzones for a lecture, an 'All hail Primus', and a rebooting on life."

I smile reticently, take the datachip and check the payment. "You don't necessarily have to—"

"I've done things I ain't proud of. Things I can't justify, not even with this badge. You don't wake up hearing the last sound bytes of people you kille." Grindwheel leans across the table, his chassis scrapping rust over the spotless white top. "I don't think you ever have."

"Surely the ideals you fight for—"

"_Fought_ for. We all get blood on our hands no matter what noble words are spoken. I paid you for a service. I slagging want out of this war, this planet, and this existence."

At Grindwheel's hard voice I dutifully nod, spread my hands, and raise a holoscreen. "We have effective methods at this clinic. You choose your termination and we begin the procedure immediately."

Grindwheel absorbs himself in the information scrolling down the holoscreen. Many clinics offer different options; I specialize in three ways to help Cybertronians shuffle off the plasma coil of life. The applied Rossum's Trinity with the complete destruction of the spark, transformation cog, or brain module are the cornerstone of my clinic.

The first option – and most well-known, used in all clinics – is to extinguish the spark. But a spark can be tenacious, fighting for every second. It can be a painful and protracted death; usually the most masochist of my clients in the style of seeking redemption through pain, choose this method. The second option is decapitation and the crushing of the brain module. Unlinked from the transformation cog and spark, the Cybertronian can't survive. Its messy work, fuel runs everywhere, but effective. Highly effective. The third option is the choice of an energy overload or depletion. The spark and brain module burn out, run down, however one wants to put it, and one goes offline forever.

Grindwheel takes his time processing everything. Once I would have discussed with clients about alt-modes that interested them, but in the termination selection I step back. It's a personal choice and this is the part where I wonder to the events that drive my patients to the relinquishment clinic.

"I'll take the second option," Grindwheel grins without humour. "I'd like to… forget everything, y'know. Doesn't need to be archived for future generations. Nothing worth learning from."

"Of course," I say, nodding in deceitful agreement. "I need you to sign on the dataslate, purely for legal matters, and then we can begin. What would you like done to your shell?"

"Whatever you want. It's not going to be useful to me anymore." A signature given, a fingerprint scan confirmed, and we walk down the corridor to the surgical theatre.

Abolition is already waiting in the surgery theatre with energon scalpels and chain-saws ready. I choose one scalpel, fine-tuned to cut through the thickest chassis, and gesture for Grindwheel to lie on the circuit slab. The theatre's lights are bright. I can count the rust flakes on Grindwheel's servos as I strap him down. Death spasms are violent, and larger Cybertronians thrash wildly. The damage they can cause is tremendous. I do not want to spend the shanix on repairing the surgical theatre. My programming takes over as my ethics and morality fade into the white noise.

I begin the first cut across his cranium. I cut across the outer shell, open the inner layer. Black fuel seeps across the slab and I see the Autobot's optics dim. At this point many of my patients begin to scream and I have to recalibrate my audial sensors. But not this Cybertronian, this cynical Autobot soldier. If he's processing pain through his relays, he's shunting it away. Grindwheel merely lies on the slab, the corners of his lips turned upwards. If I didn't know any better, Grindwheel displays a look of bliss across his face plate when I extract the brain module with a pair of forceps. Abolition steps up beside me with a handheld chain-saw. I crush the brain module at the same time my assistant cuts into the Autobot's neck servos.

Fluids spatter the circuit slab and floor, myself and Abolition. She holds up Grindwheel's head for inspection as I crack open the Autobot's chest compartment. There is a fizzling sound, a sputtering pop, then a brief flare of light. His spark is snuffed and Grindwheel is no more.

"Put the shell in the morgue," I say absently. I wipe my face plate with a rag and set to cleaning the theatre. It's my ritual after every suicide to cleanse the place of the termination lingering in the atmosphere. A cathartic purge, much like my namesake.

"We can sell the Autobot badge," Abolition remarks as she moves the metal shell from the slab to a gravity suspension. Her slight bulk belies her strength. "Collectors would pay well and I doubt he has anyone coming to claim his last effects."

A pulse of anger moves through my CPU. "I pay you to follow orders, not to rob graves. Move the shell to the morgue. We'll decide what to do later." I watch Abolition wheel the corpse out, distaste on my lips and nothing to do with the fuel from the late Autobot. Cybertronian. We're all equal in final termination.

* * *

While I watch the newsfeeds and monitor the escalating conflict, my patients tell the real tale beyond a plasma screen and reporters chattering. When one side's fortunes are on the climb, my relinquishment clinic is filled with renegades from the opposing force. It swings back and forth like a pendulum, never stabilizing long before it sweeps back the other way.

I recall one patient many vorns after Grindwheel, a Decepticon who threw the shanix on my desk, hastily chose a termination option, and stalked into the surgery theatre. Didn't even take a sip of the engex, never even looked at it. What Cybertronian doesn't have one last drink before meeting Primus?

He did not communicate to me, said not a word, and only staring ahead as Abolition and I set draining his fuel. He languished for a whole vorn in the surgery room, never quite ready to give in, seeing how far he could stretch himself. Somewhere between cycles the Decepticon expired. There was a horrible rictus on his faceplate, and I cringe remembering it. There was never a story given to justify this warrior's actions. I could not fathom it anyway because when I looked out in to the relinquishment's waiting room, there are more Autobots than Decepticons.

Until the pendulum swings again.

* * *

"Someone wants to check the morgue." Abolition's flat voice makes the announcement sound grim. "Purge, did you hear what I said? We have someone who wants to see the shells."

"Why?" I look up from the dataslate I'm reading about the refugee colonies. "Is it an enforcer operation? Have we been found out?" My CPU flashes quickly as I panic. Where did I put the shanix? How can I destroy evidence of what I do here? Do we even have a weapon to defend ourselves if things turned bad? I realise that I haven't thought about any of these countermeasures. "Autobot or Decepticon?"

Abolition shakes her head. "Unaligned. Just wants to see if a friend might have arrived here. With so many dying in the war, it's not impossible his friend might have come to see us. Do you want me to turn him away?"

"I'll see to it." I go where Abolition left the new arrival, standing outside at the front desk. It's a minibot, hardly a threat, blue visor dirtied and grey carapace showing signs of wear. He looks tired – drained right from his spark – but he straightens up as I approach.

"Umm, I know this is highly unusual," the minibot begins, "but I was—"

"Hoping to look at the shells in the morgue," I finish. The minibot nods. "My associate told me you believe your friend, gone missing I presume, might be in here."

"I want to check," he says, a waver in his vocalizer. Then he speaks more firmly, "I need to check."

I point at the recording device embedded in his cranium. "I don't want anything recorded. No distribution of any information and no telling any law enforcement of this place. Are you clear?"

"I-I understand," he replies, hands clasped together. "May I look? My friend might… he could be…"

"Come." I'm not without a spark, Primus knows. I dread having to face a moment like this again, when someone comes looking for another of their unit.

Leading the minibot in to the morgue, I watch as he begins to look across the gurneys where the day's suicides have been laid out. At first his movements are slow, as though he is hesitant to check the next shell. Then, gains courage, he goes faster. I see the light behind his visor blur as he begins to check the bodies again, then his optics align on the drawers.

"May I?"

I wave him forward. When the first pained cry breaks from the minibot's chestplate, I leave. If he finds what he is looking for or doesn't, grief is personal. I don't want to be accused of aiding someone's death when I should have been forcing them to live. The grief-stricken vocalizations follow me down the hall, and as I pass the waiting room, I see three Decepticons and one Autobot waiting calmly for their expiration. The relinquishment clinic is the only place where the fighting stops, patients no longer see the point continuing the battle once the doors and world shut behind them.

When I go back to the waiting room I see the Autobot is no longer there. I ask and with a shrug one Decepticon says, "He left with the minibot. Just got up and left."

I nod, call the next patient in. The only thing I can think of as I list off the various types of termination is the small minibot who left, obviously still looking, and who, somehow, brought the will to live back to another. Later that day I returned to reading about the refugees, how some of them had made it off world at great cost. I thought they didn't have hands dirtied by war, and found myself jealous. Jealous, and envious.

* * *

"It needs to be permanent." The Decepticon sitting across from me is desperate. "I want my spark torn out, my brain module melted down, every part of me slagged. Nothing remains, got it? Nothing. Remains."

"We can accommodate your wishes," I say, "though this is more than we do at this clinic. What you are asking is for us to be very… thorough." I want to really say 'You're asking for a complete erasure' but refrain. The way my patient is swirling his engex around and darting looks over his shoulder makes me think he's being hunted. Perhaps he is.

"I can't exist anymore. If they find even a scrap of me they can put me back together." He taps a digit on the table top. "Those are the rumours anyway. I need you to go even beyond thoroughness. Complete eradication."

I'm morbidly curious at this point. Against my better judgement and promise to not be involved in the patients' personal lives I ask, "Who is after you?"

"I didn't kill an Autobot when I should have. They'll say I gave 'mercy' though I didn't. I just let him go. Grindfly or Wheelsgrind, whatever his name was, I let him leave. Horrible green paint job, that's mostly what I remember. You know when everything becomes too much? Sure, I marched under the Decepticon banner to overthrow the old ways, and I was there when Zeta Prime went offline, but I never wanted to become a mur—"

A crash outside made the Decepticon bolt to his feet. He was a big Cybertronian whose alt-mode I could only guess at, but there was fear in his scarlet optics. Abolition's apology buzzes over the intercom; she had accidentally knocked over some medical equipment. Knocking back the engex, the Decepticon looks at me nervously.

"Can we get this done, doc? I'd like to be gone if and when the justice division shows up."

The procedure is quick. I have half a processor to tell this Decepticon that an Autobot named Grindwheel came to the relinquishment clinic and never walked out. Would he feel better knowing what happened to the Autobot that he allowed to live? Would it make any difference from this justice division he believes is hunting him? These questions fizzle in my cranium as I begin this most gruesome of procedures.

Hours later I am having my ration of energon with Abolition. It's becoming harder to find any energy in Polyhex and we carefully sip and enjoy what we do have. The newsfeed brings up the latest casualties and the destruction of an orbital defence platform.

"I don't think I can keep doing this." I think about the Decepticon disassembled on the surgical table, cogs and gears and sprockets lined up. I'm back there again, standing over the burnt-out shell, elbows deep in the chest compartment. The lingering smell of a spark's burnout fills olfactory sensors still.

Abolition gives me a hard look. "Swapping sparks and alt-modes didn't give you this crisis. Why are you turning soft?"

I grab a dataslate I had read last night, turned it on, scrolled to the highlighted section and handed it to her. "This has me thinking. We don't need to do this anymore. We might be able to choose something different than this." I remember the tangle of snipped wires and fried circuitry. "War dirties everything. I don't think we can do this forever."

"Modify our professions? Would they really accept people like us and what we've done into their new pristine communities? We were built for a reason."

"And we can change it just as easily, Abolition. If Primus wills it, we can change it."

* * *

There was a groan. Thinking someone was in the waiting room and had emitted the sound, I went to investigate only to find the place empty. I thought nothing more of it until the next cycle. This time the groan came from overhead, the sound growing in volume until it ended in a squeal. There was a distant thud, a shudder ran through my clinic, then everything was still. Abolition and I were cleaning out the morgue and I turned to her.

"Don't worry," Abolition replied in that detached, overly-calm manner she possessed. "It might be from the stress of the supports above. Polyhex is the front lines now and there's massive artillery being launched."

I nodded. The newsfeeds were cluttered with frontline reports, the sabotage of energon lines and critical power conduits depriving sections of Polyhex without power for days. My clinic hadn't lost electricity yet though the possibility was very real.

"Do you believe we're far enough underground to not be…" I didn't want to imagine being crushed by the plates far above us.

"As long as the supports and struts hold," she replied unhelpfully.

Fewer customers came to the relinquishment clinic as the heavy artillery increased. I should have taken it as a warning, packed up my profession and left, but I didn't. Abolition never commented, not even when the glow globes jangled overhead when missiles came to close. She remarks about the weaponry being used and I wonder what her past was that's made her knowledgeable.

Two cycles later when I was thinking it would be best to smelt all the bodies, the groan of stressed and impacted metal returned. It was growing louder and louder until I had to mute my audial receivers and, racing from the morgue, went to find Abolition. My pistons were red-hot when I found her in the office, looking at the newsfeeds. Static washed out the signal, providing frozen picts of Polyhex burning above us, right above us.

She had to raise her vocaliser over the sound of twisting metal. "Should we—"

Fire gushed down from above us, followed by a cascade of metal, wires, cement; it thundered down in an avalanche. I threw myself at Abolition, knocking us both under the desk.

"Primus spare our sparks!" I screamed in terror as the world turned black.

Liquid fire washed over the chamber, flooded through the corridors of my relinquishment clinic. Detonations came from above, drawing closer as laser fire was exchanged. The far wall of my office crumpled, the holoscreens shattered. I gripped Abolition's hand in mine. I heard a small thud, dread flooding my neural net at what it was, and then something detonating near us. I was thrown through the air, my hand still holding Abolition's limb. My vision pixelated and was lost in white noise and static.

I grimly held to the only piece of Abolition I had while screaming, "Where are you?!"

I cycled across every channel I knew, sub-vocalising in darkness. I haltingly walked forward, stopped when my sensors warned me of the intense heat close to my left. I diverted to the right, not seeing the chasm at my feet, and plummeted straight down. My cranium hit something, and I off-lined as my clinic fell into ruin above.

* * *

I on-lined thirteen minutes after the attack. My internal chronometer ticked away; I'm notified about my self-repair shunting power to my legs, mending damaged pistons. My chrome peels from the extreme heat and there are dents in my arms. I was being dragged from the heated rubble, pulled across metal and jagged glass. Rebooting my optics twice to verify who was pulling me out, I looked up to see Abolition. Her faceplate was dented, one optic cracked, and missing her left arm, but she heaved us both from the crater.

One of many craters that dotted the remains of Polyhex. I looked at the destruction of what had once been a sparkling city as Abolition propped me against a crumbling wall. With her usual aloofness she took her limb from my hand, reworked the wires, and with the surgical skill uploaded in her memory banks, reattached her limb.

"Where are you going?" I struggled to stand as she turned back to the crater.

"Wait," was all she said, and disappeared over the crater's lip.

I could do nothing else as my repair system worked to return functionality to my legs. I caught the flash of scarlet and gold as Abolition darts across the hazardous basin. She's looking for something, what I can't deduce, but I look at the crater that was once my relinquishment clinic. Nothing remains, just a deep hole in the ground with smoke curling in to the polluted atmosphere. I thought I would feel despair at seeing my livelihood destroyed, but a deep relief is all I can feel. I am lucky to be alive, by Primus, and I watch as Abolition climbs up the lip of the crater while holding something.

"The shanix. Our shanix." My CPU whirls quickly as Abolition hands over the money. We both look at the hole that was once the clinic but I don't really see it. "It's all finished now."

"You were right." She looks at me, an optic ridge raised cynically. "I'm thinking of a reboot. What do we do now?"

The sound of fighting is distant, somewhere beyond Polyhex's jagged skyline. A Seeker thunders overhead, what remaining glass in the windows falls. As the tinkling shards rain down around us, I look up. Through the acrid smoke I see Luna 2's outline.

"I think it's time we find a refugee vessel. If any remain." I heft the pile of shanix in my hands, feeling the weight of all the deaths I aided in. "Start over, somewhere far away from this war. It could last for millions of years at this point and I…" My optics scan Cybertron, finding nothing beautiful in it.

Abolition huffs, but it's in agreement. "Primus wills it, huh?"

"No," I say. "Because we want it."


End file.
